Over the years, many systems have been devised for securing and tensioning the strings of stringed musical instruments. Strings for musical instruments are usually provided with one ball end and one non-ball end.
One common tuning system in use today creates tension in the strings by wrapping the non-ball ends around tuning posts fixed at the head end of the instrument neck, which posts are tuned through a worm gear arrangement to create the required tension. The ball ends of the strings pass through openings in a tail piece, through which the balls or rings cannot pass. This system, while in common use, has stability problems because the worm gear drives needed to operate the tuning posts have backlash making precise tuning difficult, and also the strings can tighten around the posts after once being tightened, detuning the instrument.
In an alternative tuning system, the ball end of the string is held in a jaw, which is threaded to accept a screw that pulls the string taut. In this kind of tuning system, the non-ball end of the string is held in a clamp which ordinarily requires a tool of some sort to operate. To avoid the use of tools, this type of tuning system can alternatively hold the non-ball end of the string in a clamp that uses the tension of the string itself to provide a clamping force at a single point. By providing a clamping force at a single point, the clamping force is limited to the minimum force required to sever the string. For string players who pull aggressively on the strings when they play the instrument, the clamping force provided by a single point of clamping can be inadequate to hold the string, causing the instrument to detune.
The present invention permits the non-ball end of the string to be clamped without using tools, using the tension in the string itself to provide the clamping force in multiple locations along the string. In a second embodiment, the present invention distributes the clamping force over a wider area of the string at the point where the string is first clamped, as compared to the second point of clamping, to reduce the occurrence of the string severing at the first point. In a third embodiment, the present invention also provides an improved tuning system which has greater stability than the worm gear tuning posts of the past and a greater clamping force than the single point string tension clamps of the past without severing the strings.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system for clamping the strings of a musical instrument that can be operated without tools and provides an adequate clamping force to withstand extreme bending of the strings without slipping. It is a further object of the invention to provide a stable tuning system for a stringed musical instrument that can be operated without tools and provides an adequate clamping force to withstand extreme bending of the strings without slipping.